Neville's Battle of Hogwarts
by The Buzz
Summary: As soon as Voldemort's voice rang out through the Great Hall, eerily clear and demanding that they turn Harry over, Neville became sure of one thing. He was going to die tonight. (The Battle of Hogwarts from Neville's point of view.)


As soon as Voldemort's voice rang out through the Great Hall, eerily clear and demanding that they turn Harry over, Neville became sure of one thing. He was going to die tonight. It only made sense, didn't it? No matter what he'd learned over the past few years about fighting the good fight, he was still Neville Longbottom, the clumsy boy who got it all wrong and would forget his head if it weren't attached. So if Voldemort was coming, if there was going to be a grand battle that they probably wouldn't all make it through, Neville knew. He was going to die.

The thought was oddly reassuring, and as he ran with the others toward a position for battle, he felt an overwhelming calm. Under the adrenaline and near panic and fear and all that, of course. But it was there. It was nice to be sure of something, he supposed.

He'd been running toward the South Tower with a handful of others, listening to the echoing booms and crashes of dark magic already surrounding the castle, when he just so happened to cross paths with Professor Sprout. The sight of her round face called up the spark of an idea and a second later he'd grabbed her shoulders and shouted, "Mandrakes! We've got fully grown mandrakes!"

Fifteen minutes later, and they were running at full speed back toward the tower, arms full of potted mandrakes, and setting up to toss them at the crowd below. Earmuffs in place, Neville ducked a curse from the ground that shattered a stone gargoyle behind him, then grabbed a mandrake and lobbed it off the balcony. Then he watched in satisfaction as a whole circle of Death Eaters on the ground fell over, presumably dead from the cries. Then, he tried not to think about how a whole bunch of people were presumably dead. There was work to be done.

By the time they'd run out of mandrakes, the whole balcony off the South Tower was crumbling and two of the people Neville had run up there with were dead. (Not students, thankfully. Order members, or someone's family, or something. He was a little grateful he didn't know.) Shrapnel from an exploding stone beam had caught him in the side while he'd been tossing a plant, and the whole area was tender and sore and bleeding a little through his shirt. Still, he was alive. And that was something.

They made their retreat back down the narrow stairs, heading back toward the greenhouses. Neville dodged curses, and sent a few of his own into the melee, though he wasn't sure how many hit. He was panting by the time they got there, his side throbbing sharply, but only stopped long enough to grab a few plants, including a Venemous Tentacula he'd trained himself, and head back out toward the fighting.

He had no idea how long it had been going on already. Part of him knew it couldn't have been more than minutes, perhaps an hour. It felt like an eternity.

This time they headed toward the Entrance Hell, where a throng of Death Eaters had pushed through the main doors. The Tentacula worked wonders, and got four Death Eaters before another stopped it with a curse that sliced it into ribbons. And Neville kept fighting.

He threw everything he had into it. Sometimes it seemed the Death Eaters were winning, a dark mob surrounding them and pressing inward, and sometimes it seemed the Hogwarts troops were winning, but it went on and on and back and forth. Once, as he was starting to despair, his Gran appeared out of nowhere and put a powerful binding spell on the Death Eater who'd been about to curse Neville in half.

"Thanks for that, Gran," Neville said over the din.

She looked at him with a near-unfathomable look of pride. That took some getting used to, it did.

As they fought back-to-back, Neville found his mind wandering back to his parents. Would they be proud too? He liked to think that they would, and the next Death Eater he Stuns away he thinks, _That was for my mum_. The next one, _That was for my dad_. The next one, _That was for my whole family, you wanker_.

Then without any warning at all, it all just stopped. The Death Eaters stilled and retreated, as if pulled by some ungodly force. The Hogwarstians did the same, after a few confused moments. The silence that followed was a deafening as it was baffling.

"It it over?" someone nearby him asked in a hushed tone. A Ravenclaw he didn't know very well.

Neville shrugged at her. "Seems like, doesn't it?"

But the answer came in the form of Voldemort's cold voice, demanding that Harry Potter come to him within the hour. Neville shrugged again. Somehow, it figured.

Whatever Harry was going to do, Harry was going to do. Meanwhile, Neville had work to do. He organized several of the people still fighting around him—Kingley, Pavarti, Professor Flitwick, Oliver Wood, his Gran, of course, and a few others—with just a few words.

"We'd better collect the dead."

They were all tired and worn and aching, but, as they glanced around at the carnage surrounding them, bodies strewn throughout the rubble covering the floor to the great entrance hall, no statement had ever rung so true.

He stuck his wand in his belt (where he could still grab it easily if the fighting recommenced, or if any lingering Death Eaters tried anything), then trudged over to the first pair of feet he saw sticking out from a fallen chunk of ceiling. In the stillness, he became aware that he was both drenched in sweat, and very thirsty; his side still crackled with pain where the stone bits had caught him hours (hours?) before. But none of that mattered really.

He knelt down beside the body, a student, he could tell from the robes, and brushed aside the plaster covering its face and hair, then rolled the body toward him.

And then he was nearly sick.

Colin Creevy's sightless eyes stared up at him. Neville took several deep breaths, willing himself to hold back the wave of emotion threatening to overwhelm him. He felt, irrationally, that if Colin had to die right here, he should have at least seen it happen. That somehow, that was the least he could have done. He was of course aware that this sort of thinking really just meant that he had no idea how to deal with what he was seeing. At sixteen, Colin still hardly looked more than a boy.

Neville closed his eyes a moment, pushing the feeling down. He could do that. It was something he'd always been able to do, well, at least since he could remember.

"Someone help me with this?" he said dully.

"I've got it." Oliver appeared beside him, his tired face streaked with soot from…somewhere. Neville wondered vaguely if he looked that worn out.

Together, they lifted Colin's body and headed out toward the grounds. As they walked, Neville couldn't help himself staring down at the little figure suspended between them. A slow rage built in him with each step. It wasn't fair. Voldemort, those Death Eaters, going about ruining lives and families and outright _killing_ good people who'd never done them any wrong, and all for what? Nothing, was what. It was senseless and horrible and wrong.

"You know what? I can manage him alone, Neville," Oliver said.

Neville headed back into the Great Hall, feeling like he'd aged a hundred years in the last ten minutes alone.

Harry came out of nowhere.

"Blimey, Harry, you nearly gave me heart failure!" Neville said, then, Voldemort's words returning to him, added, "Where are you going, alone?"

"It's all part of the plan. There's something I've got to do," Harry reassured him, not terribly convincingly. "Listen, Neville—"

"Harry!" Neville interrupted him, for even through his exhaustion it had become clear what Harry must be doing. After all they'd been through to keep him from Voldemort—it was nearly unfathomable. "You're not thinking of handing yourself over?"

"No. Course not…this is something else," Harry said. It still wasn't terribly convincing, but Neville supposed that, in the end, Harry would do whatever Harry was going to do, and resolved to drop it.

What he wasn't expecting was for Harry to charge him with killing Voldemort's snake. He said that he would, of course. It seemed as impossible as anything else they were trying to do, and the small voice in that back of his head that had awoken when this all had started—the one that was sure he was going to die tonight—seemed smugly satisfied. If Harry wanted him to kill the snake, it was no doubt for a very good reason. And so Neville would try, no matter what it cost him. They all would.

"All right, Harry," he said, then noticed that the other boy's face looked haggard and tired (not surprising) but more than that, kind of lost. Neville felt a swell of brotherly affection for him, and couldn't help but ask, "You're okay, are you?"

"I'm fine," Harry said. This was possibly the least convincing statement he'd made the whole time. "Thanks, Neville."

He started to move away, but Neville grabbed his wrist. It was important that Harry know what Neville did. "We're all going to keep fighting. You know that?"

"Yeah, I…" Harry trailed off.

Neville couldn't blame him. They parted ways, Neville wondering, in part, where he actually was going, but mostly about the snake thing. He knew it wasn't a _good_ snake, by any means, but, well, that was the mystery, wasn't it.

He went back into the Great Hall and picked up another body—an Order member that, thankfully, he did not know—and started the slow, burdened walk back out to the grounds. Six bodies later, and he found he wasn't wondering about much anymore. More than anything—really, more than anything—he just wanted it all to be over.

When it turned out it really was over, he found that that wasn't his wish at all.

Voldemort's triumphant announcement that Harry was dead, that he'd killed Harry, had to be among the worst news Neville had ever heard. First, there was the thought that Harry—who he'd just spoken to, for Pete's sake, not minutes ago—was dead. That was horrible without needing any elaboration. But there was also what it meant. If Harry was dead, Voldemort had won. And it was really over. He went out with the rest of the crowd, numb.

 _Numb_ didn't last long. As Voldemort went on and on about it, gloating, his snake-like face cracked with a cruel grin, Neville felt two things stirring in him. First was that deep-seated anger, which had come and gone from the surface over those past few hours but which kept burning nonetheless. He was furious at Voldemort, so furious it almost seemed, for a moment, funny—because who wouldn't be furious at Voldemort? Funny or no, though, the steely rage was real and building with every sniveling word that came out of the wizard's slit-like mouth. Second were the words (some of the very last words) he'd said to Harry. _We're going to keep fighting_. Fueled by rage, he decided in an instant—he was going to bloody well keep fighting.

The snake was beside Voldemort, and he charged, not knowing what he was going to do, not knowing what he was expecting would happen. It didn't matter.

The disarming spell his him like a bludger, knocking him backward, winded. His side throbbed and he gasped for breath. His wand was far out of reach. That little voice returned. He was going to die.

 _The son of the Aurors_ , Bellatrix called him, and Neville felt an odd swell of pride. Odd, at least, given that he was laid out at Voldemort's feet and likely about to see his end. At least, he thought, they'd be proud. If they could understand at all what this meant, he amended, they'd be proud.

He shoved himself to his feet, and curled his empty hands into fists.

"But you're a pureblood, aren't you, my brave boy?" Voldemort asked him.

Every single part of the sentence offended him. "So what if I am?" he snapped back. He was aware that dozens of people were watching him with bated breath, waiting for the inevitable outcome. He was determined to show them what he was really made of.

When Voldemort told him he'd make a valuable Death Eater, Neville nearly laughed.

"I'll join you when hell freezes over," he said contemptuously. He'd read somewhere, or maybe just thought it, that the worst you could really do to someone was disdain them. He watched Voldemort's face fold into a frown. Better yet, he could see the others watching it too, and yelled, "Dumbledore's Army!" for good measure.

The cheer he got was worth every ounce of threat in Voldemort's tone as he froze Neville and brought down the Sorting Hat and set it on Neville's head. As it fell around his ears, muffling the world around him, he thought about executions and they always covered people's heads, at least in the old days, and wondered if this was finally it.

"It might very well be," the hat responded.

 _Thank you_ , Neville told it, not really in the mood for this. All in all, he wanted his last moments to be a little less…crowded.

"Neville here is going to demonstrate what happens to anyone foolish enough to continue to oppose me," Voldemort said, his high, silky voice sounding far away from in the confines of the hat.

"This certainly sounds like it," the hat said.

 _Shut up_ , Neville told it.

And then it burst into flame.

For all his clumsiness, Neville had never before been severely burned, and he'd certainly never before had his head engulfed in a ball of searing flame. He tried to keep from crying out but as his face and hair and ears burned he couldn't help it. He only regretted that he hadn't been able to carry out Harry's last wishes, to finish his job in the fight.

He was dimly aware of a commotion outside, and then—nearer to him—a voice saying, "I was wrong, wasn't I?"

As the voice faded out something heavy fell on his head, and in a split second he could move again. He tore the burning remnants of the hat away from his face and tore out of it a gleaming sword.

And he knew exactly what do to. Pain forgotten, he lunged forward and in a single stroke, cut off the giant snake's head. Voldemort's face twisted in fury and anguish and with satisfaction Neville thought, this is it, this is _really_ the end now, but that was okay because he'd done what he had to do. But Voldemort's killing curse bounced off of something and Neville was still alive, somehow, and so he joined the fray again. _We're going to keep fighting. We all are_.

The next several minutes (or however long it was—it was impossible to keep track of it in the battle) flew by in a blur of spells and curses, wands and rubble and people flying everywhere. Neville threw himself into it, his own exhaustion and aching body and burned face forgotten, because he was still alive and there were still Death Eaters at Hogwarts. And of course, he had a sword. It felt natural in his hands in a way his wand never had, and he cut a swath through the Death Eaters, saving half a dozen fellow students and Order members before the fighting stilled again.

And stilled for good.

He almost couldn't believe it at first, but as the seconds dragged on and no high-pitched, eerie voice rang out over the grounds, it occurred to him that maybe the worst hadn't happened. Maybe they'd won. When the news came around that not only was Harry not dead, but that he'd killed Voldemort, Neville grabbed the person nearest to him—a surprised but not unhappy Luna—and hugged her so tightly she started patting his shoulder and saying breathlessly, "We'll still have won if you put me down, you know."

Later that night, as he ate a much-needed meal, a sword at his side and a group of admirers (could it be?) surrounding him, he reflected that the one thing he'd been so sure of had been the one thing that hadn't happened. He, Neville Longbottom, who could never get anything right in his life, had survived the final battle with Voldemort. Then it occurred to him, the absurdity of it bubbling up in him like a laugh, that he'd still managed to get the one thing he was so sure of totally wrong.

Tonight, though, that didn't seem like such a bad thing. He glanced at his sword, then at the happy and relieved faces around him, and felt a smile spreading itself across his own face. Not a bad thing at all.


End file.
